Long Term Potentiation

The irony does not escape me. I am using stimulants to study the molecular effects of learning and memory. They don't have a section about stimulants in this book...that's kind of disappointing. I guess I'll have to wait until I'm out of molecular and cellular neuroscience into the cognitive stuff.

I had a badass neuro prof for the last couple days. His teaching style was much better than that of Dr. Homes.

I'm in that final stretch again...and, as always, there are crisises at home that draw my attention away from finals.

Thunder and I talked about plans after graduation. I have narrowed it down to a few places that I would be willing to go to medical school: San Francisco, West Virginia, or, depending on the MCAT score I get this winter, anywhere tha accepts me. I hope for a good score so that I may be selective but...we will have to see what this winter break throws at me.

I feel confident about my neuro exam. Biochemistry is uncertain and I need to start studying for Spanish. I think that I am going to leave my tropical disease final for last...I know I'm getting an A in that class. If I kick ass in biochem and neuro then they will be B+ grades. My participation in Spanish will most likely bump me up to an A-.

The irony of adversarial learning never escapes me. I have learned a bit about the stress response and its impact on learning and memory...it's not a good system. Stress inhibits memory formation and depresses immunity and general health. Why then, do we have this stressful exam-only system of teaching science?

Again, I firmly believe that once I get into medical school this will be different. Although they still have exams, the programs and experience is completely different. The study is consistent and daily...rather than nothing/cram/nothing/cram. Hypothetically I am supposed to be studying daily but...things come up.

The appalacian girl is visiting me this break. That's something to look forward to. I've missed her company, conversation, and insights.

Sometimes it seems like the creation energy just pulses, festers, and overwhelms him. The desire to make art is overpowering. If left frustrated it might necrose his spirit into the sentimentless shell that he knows to be the souls of those around him.
It's a cold night outside. It's going to take a sweater under his overcoat to keep him from the northern wind, which serves to sap his locomotive desire. It has been 2 months into winter, and he has almost lost any imaginative hope that there will be enough food to last through the cold.


I'm at home thinking about how much energy I have in this house. XNS. I'm listening to Lady Gaga waiting to drive to an interview at Aeropostale and Forever 21. The philosophical incongruence of their ideas and mine might undermine my desire to work there after 2 hours of doing the job.

I should start packing. Quarter is almost over

end quarter droop

The vivid colors of a sunset appear dim and uninteresting in the lack of the neurotransmitter dopamine. It is synthesized via a biochemical pathway involving tyrosine converted by tyrosine hydroxylase eventually into L-Dopa and then, via dopa beta decarboxylase into dopamine.

Although...
To the mind it just seems that good feelings are generated out of connection with someone or just the right type of psychological or physiological stress.

Looking at a single image brings on a flurry of emotions...some are good...some are bad. Memory is a terrible and wonderful thing.

I have removed myself from the forefront of research in pursuit of self edification through concentrating on further education. I anticipate with great excitement my return to the hospital volunteer setting...as well as whatever other opportunities that will come this winter break.

We are at the point in the quarter where everything seems to have slowed down to a point where it just isn't right. Ironically...this is also where the most activity and energy is needed. Elevated mood is associated with increased productivity and feelings of well being...come on dopamine!

Fromm vs Frankl

Woah...my mind is all kinds of wired right now. Last night was half and half sleepless. There are a lot of hopes and emotions going into this week. Fear of failure and hopes for connection.

My most recent intellectual endeavor has been the discovery of Fromm, the psychologist and philosopher.

Fromm discusses Freud's failure to articulate the importance of sex in a way that was encompassing of the true nature of the experience. So far, Fromm said that we all quickly realize that death is quickly encroaching and will steal everyone away from us.

The anxiety that we feel in life is not of pain, but of loneliness and separateness. Love is the act of reaching out of yourself to really know another person. Such as a child deconstructs something by breaking it into pieces, so can love be destructive. It is an act of empowering connection because we demonstrate our vitality by love.

Lovemaking is the physical joining of two people in the ultimate attempt to overcome separateness which sometimes brings forth new life.

Charity is not an act of omission, but a demonstration of love. If someone views charity as sacrifice they are not loving and are not getting the fullness of the experience of giving.

"Love is the solution to the problem of human existence" --Fromm

Those are his thoughts.

I also watched a documentary about sexual intelligence and the pitfalls of modern perceptions regarding relationships.
Met a lot of cool people this weekend too. It was really random.

In digesting Fromm I think back toward Frankl, who wrote near the same time and said that the reason for all our motivation and psyche is meaning. This is a tough pair to reconcile. Some seek solitude for extended periods of time to overcome the separateness that they feel: they commune with a perceived "higher power" in an attempt to overcome the loneliness of death.

Frankl said that Freud was wrong because (after Frankl survived the holocost) he noticed a lot of his companions were comitting suicide because they had lost their families, work, and belongings. He attributed this to the fact that the meaning in their lives had been lost. It wasn't the fact that they didn't have anyone to talk to...they made plenty of companions in their hardships. However, the fact that there was no perceived purpose to their lives after they left the death camps caused them to lose their drive to live.

I wish I could post this on an open forum to discuss.

E.M. Forster would agree with Fromm. Dr. Lascar agrees with Frankl. We don't need people to be happy, but without people...things don't seem to have much meaning. At least in my perspective.

If anyone reads this please comment.

Garlic, Onions, and Potatoes

Waiting to work with someone in the library. I have been really productive today. For some reason I have been addicted to the show Pushing Daisies. It's a really feel-good series with 1-dimensional characters and honestly...it's depressing me a lot.

Thinking about the stir fry that I cooked tonight I remember all the past times that I have made the dish in great company. Memories can be beautiful torture at times, but I wouldn't trade them for anything. It takes me back to the barn, high school, and a time where I had a lot more veggies to choose from. Most of all, I remember people. Matt Clark, Kyle, KTD, and Josh would come over for stir fry occasionally...and it never was quite perfect.

I had a great one tonight with my roommate. Everything was perfect, although I could've used a bit of lamb in it. Maybe some hot sauce would have stimulated my gustatory cells just right. Although, underneath it I remembered what my mom always used to say: "Cooking is an expression of love"

Dad always used to make me a full breakfast in the morning. Eggs, french toast, fresh bacon, and soymilk. Sometimes I think that my deviation from his faith is betrayal. I feel pulled back at times. Free otherwise.

Specifically the smell of italian spices and onions makes me think of the tactile sensation of physical contact with someone. Sometimes I feel like I muse at this thought as though it is a goldfish...foreign and contained, isolated. It has its place in a realm of chemistry that I can't endure.

The perfect amount of salt is necessary for it as well. Too much and you feel heavy and your throat is miserable. Not enough and it's tough to swallow.

This is going to be a busy week. Archan is expecting a summary of a paper that I haven't read. I have been studying Spanish all day...and it seems like I never get the time to enjoy the small things.

Dinner was amazing. I am hungry already.

Path 2

I was torn between buying a car and a plane ticket to France this winter break. I talked to Appalacia last night and it resolved my decision.

Grandmother has been institutionalized for wanting to stop the processes involved in keeping herself alive.

With my grandmother I have always had a deep and meaningful bantering connection. It's hard to see it come to this. She made the mistake of her life when she married my grandfather, and her love (Royce, I believe) has always stuck by her...

It is sad seeing her in so much pain and with so many problems. She is spirited and compassionate. I understand that without the anticipation of something grand or anything of merit in this world she has lost her will to continue. In winter we always try to talk about the coming summer.

She has a bad clot in her hand.

I have always been terrible about saying goodbye. If I say it too soon, then she might want to go even more, if I say it too late than I'll never get the chance. I can live with the second. When I see her, I let her know I care. When she's gone, I know that she has what she wanted. Peace.

At the same time, the issue of someone living becoming dead to you is also disconcerting. After just a brief conversation with the woman from spring I realize how incompatable I am with the people I'm seeing. The sound of her voice reminds me of the connection that someone can have when the ideas line up but there is still mystery and a certain erotic exotic nature to the interaction. Strangers make better lovers than tired couples. Maybe this is why my parents are doing ok in such hard times. They aren't always together, dad goes out of town for long bouts and comes back to beads and pain. If he never left he would go crazy.

I wanted to go home this weekend, but I don't think that I can anymore. I got a student who is willing to sign me off on the rest of her hours and spend saturday with me talking about micro.

I should get to work now.

Motivation

2 years and 3 months ago I was watching her walk away; the emotions in my chest were so mixed. There was thorough delight at meeting her and utter chaos when I was thinking about letting that night slip away...trading 3 hours of sleep for a night together.
I wasn't even tired.
My suitcase had a stuck handle, and I tried to pretend this wasn't any issue as I strutted toward the terminal.

Terminal. That's what I thought it was. However, we have been emailing. The emails oscillate in frequency, but now are more rapid than before. I am planning a trip against my better judgment to visit her in France November 20th.

This might be a rash desire for that physical sensation of touch or the emotional intercourse of stimulating conversation. After my spring adventures with the tall Appalachian woman other things just can't measure up.

I went out with several girls this week. Monday night was amazing; the conversation was witty and there was a light feeling at the end of the night. Thursday was an excuse for a conversation with one-sided explanations of her dogs for a significant amount of time. I had known this girl before, but badly needed reminding of why she and I are completely incompatible.

There was another, unmemorable.

Friday was a mistake. Monday night's company got a 4 loko and started a shouting match with me...I didn't shout back at all. After that episode I'm probably not going to talk to her anymore.

Right now it is cold. Accompanying the temperature change is a natural decline in activity. I don't know the specifics of the endocrinology behind it...but I know how it feels to go into winter depressed.

I feel for my roommate, he lost someone close. That's really all I can say. It is rough not having him around for a full week, but I hope everything that needed to happen for him has happened.

Death is a rough thing.

Some things can be worse.

I emailed my grandfather this morning. At this point lying has become a numb habit for me. The wet plaster of my masquerade has since hardened and would be too painful to remove. I'm sure that the lies will suffocate me if I don't confront them eventually. I'm sure there is a time. I will know when it arrives.

In the meantime I am confronted with a dilemma: where do I allocate my resources? The trip to France is reckless and will exhaust my resources, time, and energy.

I think it would be worse if I don't go though.

Senior year has come with its share of disappointments and disillusionment. Overall I have a confident feeling that I have done everything possible in college to succeed. The gpa could always be higher, the parties could have been wilder, and I could have made a lot more friends; however, I feel like getting a sense of self independent of stereotypes is far more valuable than a false sense of identity.

As I type I realize that my fingers are going against the plaster on my face. Today after a short nap I realized that my loneliness stems from an incessant perceived need to lie. Human behavior is intricate, and can be difficult at times, but this is what I'm trying to understand.

This introspective writing is intended to help me understand myself. How do I act? What am I doing? Why am I not studying Spanish right now?

I am going to do everything in my power to, with caution, get to France. This includes going home this weekend. I'll hunt the rideboard right now.

Doll

After another successful quarter of school I have less reflection and more postive feelings about everything thatI'm into right now. A's in my second half, B's in the first. Going camping this upcoming week with Sean and Elze. It should be amazing; Badger has this place picked out that we're going to meet him. It's supposed to be a Shawnee reservation place with caves and a lot of cool stufff to explore.

Some current things about me: my family is staying interesting as always. Corina is still waittressing at Sylvester's, Travis is working at the nursing home. Janee's hours are longer now at the vinyard and John got a domestic violence charge for hitting Michelle in the face. CPS has been called and now they're going to counseling. Dad's not too much in favor of John's significant other...but the whole situation is beyond my control and nothing that I can tie myself up in. Alison saw that it was best to get out of Canton and away from my brother. So far this decision to go away for college has done really good things for me.

I got an email from my mountain woman. I miss her in a sweet way. There is no chance of anything else going on...and it's better this way. I feel like our time together did me well; I hope she got the same out of it. There is a sense of reticent anxiety in her tone, but there needn't be. The attachment that was once in my nature has left.

Dad and I reminisced on the way home about all the girls that I've been with. An overwhelming majority of them have been crazy. As a scientist I would have to say that they are deviating from the norm of social interactions...they do this by expecting or anticipating actions that have no correlation to anything in the past...their imaginations run wild and they expect or perform things that have no significant contribution to their well being.

I have only been with 4 women who weren't crazy. Far too many who are. From accusations that result in serious consequences to childish games that mean I'm burning a bridge...these are not the kind of people I want.

Nor can I really say that I tend toward the promiscuity charactaristic of our youth. I am not expecting the unrealistic hookup on a regular weekend basis. A nice partner would be the best.

I haven't thought about girls for a while. Pushed them aside mentally in their potential for partnership...until I saw a quarter book I couldn't pass up. It's from Fromm and it talks about love. It says that brotherly love is that of companionship between equals, motherly love is that of nurturing pity and condolance, but erotic love is one of wholeness and assimilation. It means that you enjoy another person that you want to take them in to yourself. This was my time with the appalacian girl. She drank in what I knew about love, science, philosophy, and my social scene. In return I got a sharp dose of independent thought, tenacious passion, and a renewed sense of casting off bullshit.

Our brief relationship drove me to seek the brotherly companionship of Badger...and our other hippie comrades. This opposite side has given me the confidence and direction that I lost when I was suspended from school.

I am a smart human. I have a short but muscular build with a bit of the signs of dionyssian pleasure hanging around my waist for brief periods of time (during which I take up fanatical running routines to get back to a flat stomach and healthy feeling). As far as our capacity to learn and create: I am at the helm. A rennaissance man, I feel that I can acquire any skill readily and use it aptly. It has taken me 1 week in the lab what it takes others 2 or 3.

There is a difference between confidence and arrogance and I know where it is. My shortcomings are easily seen. Sometimes I can be short-tempered though I mean well. My interactions with other naked apes end quickly sometimes when I refuse to circumvent meaning for aesthetics. Most of all I have this underlying feeling of inadequacy that is instilled by the culture that I was raised in.

Here lies my latest revelation: a quote from the pope. I'll elaborate tomorrow.

Neighbors

One day when we were getting our carpets replaced by the landlord I encountered an interesting discussion amongst the workers. One with a shaved head said that he got his $2500 paycheck stolen in a stall of a nightclub by 2 black people. Then he went on about how "they're n*ggers, we should get rid of them."
For some reason this venom has taken up more of my mind and energy than I want it to.

Whenever I get wasted they'll be out on the stoop...4 guys and a girl or two. They all look about 40, even though they range from 18-37. Working out in the sun will do that to your skin. Swastika tattoos and shaved heads are the motif, and there have been a number of altercations that are audible from my house.

One night I heard a struggle going on from outside, and one of the guys ran down the stairs saying that one girl is beating the hell out of another. Sure enough, southern accents were screaming profanities in a scratchy female tone. We didn't know what the fight was about...but we saw a group of the neo-nazis crowded around this tall skinny woman and a fat short woman on the ground. The skinny one then proceeded to grab the fat one by the hair and repeatedly slam her head into the ground.

Kinder went to grab his phone. We were all in shock, at first I thought it was funny...like they were acting out a game similar to something Jeff, Josh, Steve, and I used to do. Then when I heard the crack of her head on the asphalt I knew that it wasn't a game.

One of the guys lazily stepped in and told her not to get too rough. By this time the fat one was on her feet and got a couple shots to the face of the other girl before getting slammed into the truck that was next to them. The skinny one took her shirt off.

I have seen fights. Usually it's two guys pushing each other and one punch before someone is worried about messing up their good looks. These people had no regard for killing each other though. By the time my friend dialed the police one girl had already sped off in a truck with one of the nazi boys on the side of the window holding on for life...trying to tell her to calm down. He let go and rolled, got up laughing, exclaimed: she's pissed!

At first it was a spectacle; they are always on the porch talking about nothing and asking us for beer. I knew by the conversation that they were hateful, racist, but I didn't know the extent of it until I went over there. One of my roommates agrees with their sentiments...and a few others have hints of the misunderstanding that causes so many people to hate those with darker skin. This past Thursday I got a better glimpse of it.

I'll backtrack a second. Yufan "Eric" Ling is the Asian in my fraternity. It was a mistake to go over there and try to get them to socialize. Eric had no idea what they were saying because of their thick drawl and they didn't understand his accent either. So, I tripped over a chain and smacked my head on the concrete and went stumbling on my way.

This Thursday though...words were had. I drank a 6 pack of tall genessee and a couple natties before heading to the bars. I wasn't feeling it because there weren't many people there. On my way home I hear the blonde one exclaim "P Murda!" So I go over and chat. One offers me a cigarette, which I accept. In retrospect I'm glad that Brad didn't tell them my real name and I'm almost certain that they don't know it.

After talking a little while about the weather and how drunk we're getting we get on the subject of religion. "I believe what I can see. I can see hitler but I ain't never seen god." He tells me. I've argued philosophy successfully while drunk before so I tried explaining a syllogism to this 18 year old who never attended high school. I got about 1/10th the way into my argument before he went blank. I'm not saying that I was the most articulate speaker at the time, but I tried to communicate my inner dialogue regarding empiricism and rationality to him. The idea of platonic idealism and the dichotomy of that and material determinism is tough to understand. It took me years of receptive thinking to get the professor's words through my head. I was stupid to think that I could even start to explain why this man should consider logic in reasoning reality.

"So, you like what Hitler said?"
"I've read Mein Kampf, I believe we should kill all the n*ggers"
"Do you want to kill me?"
"You ain't a n*gger"
"There is no difference, it's just melonin and a cover of the same internal shit"
"Yeah it's fuckin' different because they're FUCKIN N*GGERS"
"Would you ever act on what you think?"
"With all my heart I want to"
This took me back a bit. Then he continued:
"I've been to prison for 6 months. I'd go back for a good cause."
"You think this is a good cause? Getting rid of th...why are they so bad anyways? What is there not to like?"
"They're different. That's my opinion. You can think what you want but I'm going to act on what I feel is right."

It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, go here alone while not fully sober and a little upset.

"I speak spanish, so I'm different. Do you want to stab me?"
"Not you, I like you. I don't like your roommates and I sure as hell don't like that gook you brought with you the other day. I'da killed him if got the chance"
"Have you ever killed someone because the way they look"
"My buddy sure has! I was 5, year was 1997 when he slit a n*gger's throught an' went to prison. Hey! Get out here and show him the knife!"
I'm thinking they're all talk, that this stuff never really happens, this is just what people joke about. Then the man with the giant swastika on his arm walks out with a hunting knife with a leather case comes out. He hands it to me.
"Would you stab me with this? Would you want to kill me?" I feel myself getting upset at the ridiculous stalwart hatred and ignorance of these people.
He has a darker voice with more experience behind it. "No I wouldn't. Your skin's the wrong color for that. Besides, we like you P Murda," he laughs and the others chime in "P Murda"

That nickname has no significance except the irony that I'm a very peaceful person, a scientist who wants to explore and understand. This was a night of exploration. As they passed around a can of four loko and mused about how all the spicks, wops, jews, n*ggers, chinks, and arabs are messing up our country.

After a while I was getting sarcastic. I started to drawl like them and cut words down, act like I didn't know any words above 8 letters or 3 syllables. Of all the people that I've unloaded scathing verbal criticism on...these people deserved it the most. I unbuttoned the case of the knife and the laughter rolled down. The experienced one said "best not open that...you'll never know where it might want to wander..."

I hate myself for not telling them all to go to hell. Or at least doing something. I told them that they were wrong but it didn't seem strong enough. Thinking back on everyone who has touched my life in a positive way with a different skin tone or racial background...Tiara, Lisa, Eric, Ariyatma, Preeti, Yu, Dr. Chen, Dr. Lee, Dr. Tanda, Mengxuan, Tj, Big Mark, De'Andre, Dan Z, Jessica, and the list goes on...these people have been phenomenal. I can't imagine someone refusing to listen to what Dr. Lee has to say because he's Korean, or wanting to kill Tj because he's from Jamaica, hating Lisa because she wears a hijab or refusing to hear Dan's lyricism because his parents are jewish. It makes me sick.

They said that they're going to move out. Friday. Nope. Sunday. Nope. Today? I still saw their white van with a bashed in window. I still hear stories ringing in my ear about how one of them chased a black man off our house who was trying to steal something. Never happened! I don't believe it!

I remember that story about being robbed by 2 black men. I told a roommate about it. They chuckled and said "he told me he went to a casino last weekend." Gambling problem?

The blonde was discourteous to Bethani, and is a general misogynist. He went up to her while we were on the porch. "CaI getta beer and a cig?" I hand him a honey brown and a camel light. He turns to Bethani: "you kinda cute. You got a boyfriend" She doesn't, but said yes. "you monogermous? Da mean do you sleep around?" She said she doesn't sleep around. "I guess I got nothin else to say" he scoffs and leaves. When a woman walks past him he says to her "my cuz said he gonna put it in your butt tonight!"

I asked this man what he does for a living. He said nothing at first. Then after a few drinks he asks if I want to buy any weed or crack. I would love for him to present it to me so that I can give the cops a real reason for putting these people where they belong. They have nothing to lose. That's what scares me the most. They're just there, waiting. Scowling at anyone who doesn't do what they want, or act like them.

This has been a little cloud on my perfect summer. I thought I would feel better after describing it. These are probably the people who stole my bike. They stole our peace of mind...and our lawn chairs.

The new lab is phenomenal. I spend about 2 hours a day working on dissecting fruit fly brains and reading scientific articles.

This weekend I'm going home for First Friday in Canton, and to meet up with friends. Jason got bit by our pig after he attempted surgery (castration) on one of her piglets. He's ok, but I probably should help around the house more than I have been this summer.

Stats and writing are easy. I have a 98% in stats and a 96% in writing with little or no effort. I'm glad to finally be done with organic chemistry; learning in a neutral lab environment is much more productive and interesting because things actually matter.

One of my most anticipated discoveries in the condition of the naked ape is that of music. The calculated intentional vibration of air molecules has a startling effect on people. It is very dissimilar to that of a territorial bird, which calls for mates or to threaten off predators.

I'm just listening to this and thinking about how it makes me feel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aaDQFdKzY8. Don't watch it. Seriously. The lyrics and tones should be enough to give you a picture. Something lodged in you hippocampus will break free and flood your system in an instant. For me, I think of all the people I've loved and how full my experiences have been. I don't desire. That part is silent. Instead...nostalgia comes over me.

This has been a great week. I have seen people that are closest to me in my hometown. Josh, Catalina, Mathias, my family, and a few others. It seriously makes this time more meaningful and enjoyable when I am with people that I like.

Something incredible must be said about constantly moving. You don't rust when you're running. People are excited to see you for a great night on the town and then they forget about you for a bit until your next visit.

Maybe this behavioral tendency is related to my alleged attention disorder. If I'm always jumping around then it's impossible to get bored.

Josh and I always talk about the problems of modern society and how people are handling their situations poorly...wasting their lives in front of the television and discontented marriages. Yesterday I sat for 2 hours and drank a beer while watching CSI. I felt fantastic. Nothing. Literally nothing was going through my head. I thought "this makes sense. This feels really relaxing." and I understand now why some people will pitch all concerns about the environment for a good program. The question is: is it worth the work?

Contrast is the story of my life. Last week I was losing sleep over the fact that I thought there weren't enough hours in the day. I only made one promise to myself: I will finish ishmael this week. That's it. No overarching resolutions about women or saxophone or making money and seeing friends...just a book.

I drank almost every day this week. Hung out with Corina, Janee, Travis, Jason, mom and dad, and all the animals. Today I held wires back from a giant screwmachine in the vineyard. I went out to the movies 3 nights. Once with Josh, once with Janee and Jason, and once with Ashley. Saw Clash of the Titans, Kickass, and Date Night. They were all entertaining. Ishmael is very introspective...it's awesome.

Now I'm listening to cuentame al oido. I get caught up in the accent that she has. It's melting. It reminds me of nothing. I haven't heard a voice that clear and melting in a while. The background music is tin cans and bad synth but that voice really gets you.

I should probably do something right now.

finals

Calc final is in half an hour. integral of udv equals uv-integral of vdu.
That's it...my problem is just with the trig function and endless technical rules. Suddenly I'm more worried about Ochem.
If it boiled down to it, I'd rather lose my chance at year-long biochem than neuroscience. Both are important.

Nora convinced me to quit being so ridiculous. I want to take a creative writing class instead of picking up a 3rd major. I'm not taking physical chem this fall. Fuck quantum mechanics. I just want to stick to my guns and do neuroscience research. I'd forget it anyways...plus calc isn't my strongsuit.

Last night she told me how everything is. If it works out, great. If not, then we had some great times and I learned a lot about how to touch someone.

If it comes to dating...would I be better with a scientist? I feel like I'm explaining a lot of stuff that I'm learning to her and I feel like an ass because of it. My sister would have shot me in the foot by now. I know that I'm not on a higher level of thought, I just have so much interest in this stuff and want to talk about it with people. I think this is how everyone in bio ends up marrying each other...they're the only people who understand each other.

The best part about seeing someone in non-science is the fact that they're not a dissectionist...they don't have to be a romantic, but there's not that urge to understand everything.

There are a lot of fantastic girls out there in science though. People that I get a long with...more or less. Sometimes I get contentious with them though...competitive.

Parental pressure is going to greet me when I get home. Why didn't you make dean's list? What do you need to change?

Answer: I need to 1 take less classes 2 better balance classes with nonscience or 3 have no social life. The catharsis I get meeting people and drinking with friends is something that I can't pass up.

That final is coming. All I need to do is pass. It feels good to know that I don't have to be exceptional. I felt like life was ending last quarter when I was freaking out about chemistry. It will be fine. I have all next year to clean things up. And this time I won't be dumb about it.

Stress is an incredible force on the body. We're not equipped to deal with all this cortisol not being used...and it permanently modifies transcription of factors dealing with energy consumption. In other words...stress has a long-term negative impact on health. Thinking about it stresses me out...

I'll be home for this next week. Coming home Saturday after moveout.

Pass

The extended social experiment with living in the fraternity is finally drawing to a close. I'm sitting, contemplating on the first floor of Alden. From Mexicans to noise violations, we've had a lot of police attention. There has been a lot of good times and drama. I can't say that I'll miss being woke up mistakenly by someone looking for the bathroom, having to pay $30 extra on my water bill because of trash violations after parties, or cleaning up beer cans or vomit for about an hour every weekend.
I will miss some things about it though. The communal feel is the best part. Next year I'm rooming with someone I'm close to, but I'll miss always coming home to some kooky crap going on or guys just hanging out.

The result of this quarter has been bad (relative to what I usually get) grades...but I realize that it's really not that important anymore. I see the fact that I don't have to jump miles over the bar and kill myself doing it. There will be flight next summer...and a great return afterwards to do what I'm called for.

$985 a week for 12-16 hours of teaching in Spain is the job that I have lined up for the year immediately following college. After that, I'm going to medical school...most likely somewhere costal so I don't end up going insane.

There was a limo taking the seniors to strip clubs, a pretty big dance party, and a lot of drunk conversations with different guys telling them that I'm glad to have known them.

Last night I again realized the sense of alienation that I get at the parties. I've always known, but It's just not my scene. Guys like Spencer and Chris will live it up and love every minute of it. I'm just excited to meet someone who is stimulating in some capacity, or shares some of my interest. Going to a more ambient environment has always been more soothing and allows me to flourish in conversation. I can't dance to rap without looking odd, I don't like drinking natty, and drinking games with plastic cups don't exactly satiate my appetite for competition.

Enough bitching, let's talk about the great things this year. I've learned so much chemistry, a lot about microbiology and evolution has been a very delightful intellectual trial. I learned a lot more about going down on girls...and love doing it when a girl deserves it. I figured out that you have to talk about nothing, or dial down your intensity for people to have an extended conversation in a "normal" social setting...otherwise you end up alone like a certain...muskrat.

Also, there's a big thing coming my way from Chen's lab. He wants a report about this microbe that has been producing a yellow metabolite on fructose. The next person to have my position will pick up where I left off...and Chen wants a formal report. I'm considering it a great practice for my potential thesis next year.

Speaking of which: a proposal. Since Dr. Lee told me that I only have to dedicate like 6 hours a week to his research...I've thought of what I could do in my free time relative to neuroscience.
Pain has been in the back of my mind for the last 2 years or so. I've read case studies that discussed my mother's condition (this is a decent website that will explain it http://rsdhope.org/) that have been interesting. The disease is significantly more common in women. Case studies have shown that when these women get pregnant their symptoms vanish and they return to feeling like a person should (apart from the whole pregnancy part). This summer I intend to explore some of the current experiments that have been done on these case studies. My thought is that there could be a hormonally based treatment that could simulate pregnancy and be used as a better treatment for this disease...especially in cases like my mother who is immune to the main form of treatment for the condition. Obviously this is out of the scope for undergrad...but I could do some experiments exploring the connection between hormones and pain signaling.

Another good thing that happened to me recently has been a tall female "hippie" that has been really good to me. Whether we're hitting the bars, outside, or we're laying in bed talking about our experiences, books, stupid party stories, or great movies...I feel comfortable around her. She's about 5 or 6 inches taller than me and...I kind of like it.

If my memory serves me correctly there was no distinct female figure that made Dedalus flee Ireland. If there was, then she would be this person, and Ireland would be the frat. I know that there's an alternative world out there that isn't an endless mashup of people that want to skip the introspective and intellectual part of college for the shit on weekends. She lets me feel confident and chill. She's intelligent, compassionate, engaging, and...leaving. I'm surprised how OK I am with this. I feel like being with her is a great thing, but will be ok when she goes. Througout my life I have tried to cling to things when they're really not good for me. This resistive attitude somtimes gives me trouble. Everything is temporary...this is a good thing. It gives me less opportunities to fuck it up.

I'm learning from her. I'm learning that it's ok not to always have people around. It's ok to think, be yourself, and that my ideals are more important than I have made them recently.

Really, truly, honestly...it bothers me to hear guys objectifying the shit out of amor. I might mock it, say dirty things like "fuckin' girls are only good for cooking and sex" but...when I stand in line at the busy day market and someone seriously says "that girl needs to be on my dick right now!" I want to throw up. I don't know what to talk about with these people. These are the people who will say "college is the best point in your life" or "it's all down hill after 21" because their physical powers decline with time and they never pursue wisdom or experience in meaningful things...and they end up being douchebag workers at UPS.

I'm not touting some universal standard of ethics...but the shanty gauntlet of male objectivist culture frustrates the living shit out of me...and I'm not going to change it by abstaining from it or working against it...I can just leave it and enjoy my books, dark beer, hippie friends, and good music. I like who I am. I wouldn't change a thing...except maybe have better teeth, but that's a different story.

truth

I've been sick these past couple days. I feel like mucus is just pouring out of my head right now.
Being 21 has been awesome so far. I work hard during the day and go out almost every night.
Since I have a biocalc exam tomorrow I'm going to keep this bitch session brief.
Monya gets more and more awesome every time we hang out. She's just a cool chick. I thought her friend cecile was the same way but she's not. I like having a solid non-flaky female friend that I can bounce ideas off of.
Thunder and I have been getting closer; he's usually my partner when I go out. I considered bringing Brendan, but a lot of people are just offended by things he says. It takes a little bit to understand him.

I need a date for Founder's dinner. There's a list of people that I've been considering, but none have really stuck out in my mind as good choices.

I met up with people at casa last night. Luke, Nora, Travis, Amanda, and others were there.
Amanda and I haven't talked in weeks. Last night she was playing chess and some guy came up and started massaging her back. I left. I'm glad that I'm done with all of that mess of a person. She dragged my grades and anxiety through the mud whenever we hung out together. Last night was the last nail in the coffin, I took her out of my phone. Stupid blonde primate...

Biomedical research has been awesome lately: I'm overseeing a project from start to finish now. Dr. Chen gave me a soil sample and told me to isolate any actinomycete and analyze for antibiotic production. I think he might teach me bioinformatics as well. So far I had 25 colonies from Athens and 25 from Albany. I could only purify about 10 from each. There's definitely antibiotic production occurring and I'm going to study it. We're looking for rare or new organisms. Yesterday there was a slow-growing good sporulating colony that I tried to isolate. Hopefully I'll get it.

Off to homework.

21st

My 21st was epic. Apart from the fact that it was on April fool's day and consequently a lot of people skipped out...I had a great time. I dropped $200 to have a huge party. The anticipation was exhausting and the night was incredible. Everyone was just happy, and there were plenty of interesting girls. I...unfortunately...got a bit too drunk. The night started with a pbr then 3 naturals, then I was fed a mixed drink, two double chocolate cake shots, champagne, 2 bottles of Spanish beer, 1 bottle of another imported beer...I was hammered...then midnight hit.
At midnight all the older fraternity guys came out and dragged me, literally, to the bars. After the 1st shot I blacked out. I remember bits and pieces...yelling at a bouncer because his beard sucks, telling everyone they have nice teeth, and "dancing" in the street. When I got back to my house more people were there to see me. I was incoherent though. I woke up at 7:55 with a black eye and a biocalc quiz to do at 8:00 a.m. I was still drunk through the majority of the day.

I was stressing about making everyone happy while still trying to talk to the French girls. I was worried about no one showing up...but that didn't happen at all. Girls were making out, people were dancing and playing pong, and I spent the majority of the night in the kitchen with chocolate cake and the girls that I tutored.

I had so many thoughts as it was happening. This is the moment. It was phenomenal. That day, and now, I had a feeling of irresponsible confidence that was brought on by the realization: Life is passing.

After thinking about it I realized that the black eye was from the bedpost.

It's so much easier to ask a friend out when you're 21. No holds barred on your account.

A few interests are coming in and school work is going well. I seem to be totally on top of things, with the exception of integrals in calculus.

Easter: a family time. The spazztic feelings of hatred toward my brother gradually subsided during dinner when I realized the contradiction: how am I supposed to help the world when I can't accept my own brother.

Psychoanalyzing myself again: I put up defense mechanisms because of the way I was treated by him when I was younger. Angry, quick to rationalize, intense, physical, and withdrawing from conflict are all ways that I dealt with his autism.

During dinner I talked to him. More than the "get a job" or "grow up" that I usually spit at him. He talked about when we were kids. When he did...there was a bizarre sense of backward remorse.

A brother is a huge bond. Beyond parents even. He was the impetus for me to leave home...I wouldn't have said "yes" to OU if he wasn't at home...blocking all my plans. This has been great though, leaving. I needed to get some sunlight so I could grow here. more or less.

The fact that he has a kid and a job now makes me so happy. Perhaps he's growing up, in a weird way.

I used to lead the attack against him, verbally taking jabs anytime I could...but I really realized that I want to help him when I was talking with Vanessa. I struggled through mouthing the words: "deep down, below the disorder. He really is caring."
This is the first nice thing I've said about my brother.

Being back in the lab has been great. Dr. Chen has me running reactions and starting isolation projects all by myself. He wants 10 unique colonies by the end of the week.
Speaking of this, I have to get going.
Initiating new guys has taken up a lot of my time. Still, going out this wednesday is going to be a blast.

sage

Today was a good day. Kind of...monumental, in a small way. I met with the professor, and he cleared up some of my deepest issues with some of the lightest philosophical combat I've ever had.

First of all, I took my enhanced knoweldge about biology to try and take his "critique of pure reason" theorem to task. This wasn't done easily...and he swiftly diffused it without much care.
"Your ideas of god hinge on the idea that we're different from animals...why then has behavior been observed showing the links between animals and humans..." I listed a couple relevant topics such as babboons and drugs and dolphins and communication.
His rebuttal wasn't terribly satisfactory, but it did the trick. He stated that I'm wrapped up in manipulating this discourse about languge, when my categorization and discourse was fundamentally flawed. He sited Dawkins's work on memes and the idea that everything I'm saying is using a flawed system. This is...therefore because of...is a retroactive progression of ideas. I can always get a phenomenon and manipulate my theory toward what I want...therefore I can try and meld my ideas to the system that fundamentally (on the particulate level) has no explanation.
He put the ball in my court saying "Is everything you are reduced to molecules? Why then do you keep adjusting your discourse to one that doesn't explain data such as your perceived relationship failures. You categorize yourself in a non-empirical way and you flaunt empiricism..."
He was talking about the fact that I'm "short" and the fact that I try and base some sort of biological theory derived from physical phenomenon...when in reality it is based on identity. Identity has no place in biology...he said. I challenged and lost several times from every angle I could think of.

Then he really put the ball in my court by saying: satire is a reflection on a reflection. Cynicism is a reflection on a reflection of something that is not sound. He sited my projected image of toughness and the fact that I try and derive some real meaning from something that I don't conjure up unless immense pressure is placed on my thought process...at this point I lose something because I'm trying to create something meaningful...

You project upon yourself this idea of a fractured family...family is the thing that Lacan and many other philosophers say is the grounds for all personal interaction. This idea that you put yourself to has reprecussions in all your relationships because you think you're above them when you're not. Wham! Truth from the highest source of knowledge that I know...language from a man I admire prompting introspection to a level that I'm not apt to. He called it too...I told hiim Ikept a running blog of my thoughts. He said they weren't really my own...my identity is a projection, in a sense, and it causes strict judgement from when I was little until now.

He essentially was telling me to cast it off. Quit blame-shifting, my sister says. The professor took a meat-cleaver to my need for empirical dissection of personal relationships...then he disarmed me with something that I really wasn't expecting...but I'd known all along. "I'm reading Jane Austen." I criticised hiim for it. "You can judge all you want, but she knows that the only real human experience worth having is that of human connection. You can't deny its claims to knowledge through consensus and its power to create identity. What are the three things (actually 4) that humans can ever write about?"
I replied with a bit of chagrin: "The only things we know...birth, death, and sex...the fourth and most prevalent but yet unseen is the search for identity...this identity is created through knowing other people and comparison...but to have true identity we must contrast ourselves with a more prevalent being: a higher power. Bloomsbury group motto "only connect" from Howard's End...you know it?"
"yes...Austen would've been in the Bloomsbury group with high fives!"
He always can make me laugh as he mops the floor with what I think is real thought...

I took one thing away from this: Lose the attitude.

We talked about modern criticism and its aberrition toward truth...but that was beside the point. I'm in a crucial part of my life: if I don't accept the source of my identity then I will forever have self-destructive tendencies. It got deeper.

"You're an emotional masochist. You pursue the relationships that are destructive so that you can postulate why everything is stacked against you. Battle off your own demons first"

And I'm seeing this more and more. I can't get a valid explanation for everything through science. My identity is derived from one thing: God. If I don't confront what this means then I will continually be looking for water in sand. Trying to derive consciousness from neurophysiology or the movement of molecules will not give me the ordered discourse I'm looking for. This drives me against one of the most difficult dichotomies: Chaos vs. Order.

Dissociating from this concept of "God" has only led to one thing in science, philosophy, psychology, and life...anti-realism or chaos.

Then he stabbed at my alcohol use. I claimed that it was an escape...he said it was a temporary distortion of a reality that is the confusion derived from unsound discourse. FUCK! You're RIGHT!

I confronted him with Brendan's idea...God is a concept for time, they are the same because time caused the creation of order from randomness...and all energy in the universe is transferred or converted to entropy through time. I forget the argument exactly about this. My mind was just set on how much of an ass I'd been to people in the last couple months.

Saw Sarah tonight. She has such beautiful steel blue eyes it's tough to look away. She seems well. This makes me happy. I maintain my statement: if there's anything that I could ever do to make her the happiest woman on the planet then I would. For a time that mission involved being close to her. Now that means back off. In the future it might take on an entirely different role.
I can't criticize but...I feel like she's with a deadbeat man. Contrasted with the shit I wrestle with I mgiht say that about a lot of people...but from her tone I got that feeling.

The spring releases still...I've never had this much of an attack from the professor. He told me that God gave us emotion for a reason. Emotion before thought (I argued with him on that and...although thought can preceed thought...with regard to apprehensions etc...but raw feelings occur independantly, such as seeing Sarah--without any thought to our past or mistakes I felt this rush of compassion).

My thoughts are a mess right now. It's time to sleep it off.

storm

I forget the literary technique that describes the parallel between the weather and a person's thoughts. Tonight at muggs was a good little trip. I finished persepolis 2 and read a chapter of Ochem. I also had some stimulating conversation with Josh Boord and a fair amount of disgust for the 2 karas.

At least the girls in Miami U were going somewhere, the shallow form-over-function attitude of the displaced suburbanite "rebels" lathered with shallow sauce makes these people exceptionally unappealing. They're down-to-earth people sometimes. However, the "I drink all the time and smoke too much because it's cool" attitude annoys the piss out of me. I'm going to choose to let that blow past me though. I feel like it's kind of ironic that they incessently talked about attractive tall dudes a lot...like the iconic contrast in my head between the deep and narrow had to be leveled before I could go any farther.

There's one person who really stands above a lot of this shit, and that's Josh. He's a compliment to everything that I'm looking at in this odd interaction called "attraction." Tall, dark eyes and dark hair, smooth voiced, confident, skinny, musician, free spirit, and deep...he and I have had a connection for what seems like the better part of my life. He's the one person I can tear down the facade and talk to.

It's shameful how much he gets hit on by girls. The track that he chose is opposite of mine. I laid down my instruments and music to pick up the textbook. He picked up the novel and clutched the guitar. Both of us are looking for balance. Recently he picked up a good stable job, and works 64 hours a week. He's begun chastising people who simply "do whatever makes them happy in the immediate future" and he's catching flak for it. I feel like I've been saying this so much that I've burned too many bridges in Canton...that's why breaks get lonelier and lonelier.

I'm still set on this hard-pressed schedule and climbing the ladder toward wealth and my ultimate goal: finding a cure for my mother's disease.

Josh picked up my Ochem book for a bit and immediately took a mild interest. I explained a bit about endothermic reactions and why carbon is the element of life. He's intelligent enough to blaze through all the flaming hoops, but I don't think he has the motivation to do something that he's not passionate about.

Anyways, we talked about self-denial for a long period of time. It's worth not getting a shot in a bar to have a sandwich in Paris. It's worth not getting a case on a wednesday night to have a pauliner in Toledo, Spain. Neither he nor I have the opportunity for a quick trip to Europe without dire consequences affecting our future economic stability. We have to make sacrifices.

One of my sacrifices will have the largest payoff. I'm thinking of relinquishing my hate for someone who has warped my life forever. This involves a trip to North Carolina.
I've often imagined myself going there with a significant other for emotional support. The transference of negative to positive emotions would cause a huge connection to anyone...just as long as they could say the right things to me. This is something that I have to do by myself though.

The man has hundreds of thousands of dollars, all going to charities and various organizations.
I think I'm past the point of hate though. If there is a God in heaven he would want me to let go of my bitterness...if this is only chemical chance...there's no point in holding to some sort of metaethical code that can't be derived with solid logic.
Janee would never agree with me. She doesn't agree with me on a lot of things. I actually think that she's really mad at me because she chose to take her current boyfriend's ex girlfriend to Denver instead of planting things and drinking with me over this spring break.

Time is running out though. These people I want to speak to are dying quickly. I've noticed my habit of offsetting anger about this event to other people. When I was in Miami U, my dad was taking my new niece and autistic brother to have the mother of all confrontations with him. Dad got it on tape. Maybe I'll have the guts to listen to it some day.

I talked to Josh about this. That was definitely the way to go. Usually I talk about it to some random girl and that turns into a confusing mindfuck that ends up with either a horrible romance or an incredible weight.

It's stormy here. Canton is sordid.

Another thing that I brought up with Josh was my blatent discontent with the way we naked apes approach relationships. As the Karas chattered away about how so and so has great eyes or such and such is really rich, Josh and I talked about female companionship. "I just want someone to be around, lay with, or just sit and read with," Josh would say. One of the Karas interjects "I would love to just read with you," but both of us were thinking that this isn't the kind of companionship that he's interested in. I asked her to describe him in 3 words. Attractive was one, passionate was the other...the third was largely irrelevant.

Socially, people tend to let their self-perception dictate who they want to be with. Hence, Josh and my propensity toward shattering stereotypes works to our disadvantage because these facilitate easier acceptance. We both want something that could possibly be found in another country. Most likely we could call this "a different perspective" but then again it might also fall under the category "uncommitted relationships" or "psychosocial moratorium" or "culture shock." All we know, is that it's out there. Some of my best fiction came from my time in Spain. Some of my deepest revelations were on the banks of the Rio Tajo watching the watter flow over a retaining wall.

The readings for my Evolution class will probably result in some interesting reflections. Tomorrow I'm going to work the fuck out of the boflex to make up for lost time (finals week) and study the shit out of Ochem so I can keep from frying myself next quarter. Coffee with an old friend tomorrow, maybe I'll get my foot in with an older crowd. Thinking about it, I really hope that K doesn't hate me. It would be of little consequence if she did...seeing as how our conversation seems usually intitated by me and ended by her, but I don't want to have another sunk friendship just because of my projective identification or shifting thoughts.

Red is batting at a stray bead on the floor. I look at the wall laden with my mothers beads. How can she live like this? She spends hours a day making the most beautiful gaudy necklaces. People chatter about her work in a positive way. The pain in my eye and jaw as a result of this chalazion infection is distracting...I can't imagine what she goes through when she wakes up every morning. When I climb the steps at night I can't help but think with every step I might wake her from her infrequent light sleep. She says everything with a smile. "When I sleep, I don't feel like my body is on fire..." she laughs genuinely "I slammed my head on the corner of a door but didn't flinch because it feels normal!" Teary eyed and weary I'm turning to the professor to answer these questions: Why would a caring God do this to such a good servant of his? Is it all chemical randomness?

He's going to set me right again. With every lesson, more of his teachings set in. I love it. Too many thoughts for one night. Such a storm of ideas.

capsaicin and KALE

I planted a flat of kale for our upcoming plant sale. It's going to be so badass. Also sunk some tomatoes and played frisbee with the dogs for a couple hours. Drank with Travis and cooked with Corina. Going out to muggs with Josh in a bit for coffee and chemistry.

I ate a bunch of habanero sauce and now my mouth and nose burn.

Josh is here. Going to read some evo and possibly hang out in the fish barn tonight. Good day!~

mi ami

Piling in the car after a long week of finals...I was intellectually and physically exhausted from studying so much and working so hard for classes.

I came out with a minor hit to my GPA, no failed Ochem, no major changes in plan. I'm still going to cut back the shit this coming quarter if I feel it's too much. If I work a bit every day though...I should be able to pull the gpa and hours that I really want to.

This weekend was really good. I went to miami to visit Katie. I've always lived by the principle of intellectual and physical contrast being a necessary phenomenon for us to understand the physical world...with that being said, I'm glad I am where I am right now.

This weekend was a gauntlet of whitewashed America and uppity suburban children "growing up" into the consumerist unquestioning society that is wrenching people like my sisters down for their own personal gain. The intricate network of power in the form of $$$ was like a spiderweb around that place.

I sound like I'm on a fucking soapbox...but I just felt uncomfortable there...without the idealistic undertones of what was transpiring. I felt like I could be 15% myself.

First night, I got the up and down judgement from several people on the street even though I was wearing a (not dirty...for once) shirt and jeans. I paid to get in a bar where a large amount of people were wearing a button-down shirt and jeans.

I can't go to a habitually clean place of residence and feel ok, welcome, or stable. It's not to say that K or the people I was staying with weren't perfect...I just don't feel good in that setting. It would be like going in for an interview dressed up and having a man in a suit sit on the floor of a horse barn...only the filth was clenliness. It's like Alison's apt or my NC grandmother's kitchen.

I chose this though. I suggested to Nick that we should visit Miami so I could chill with K.

K was perfect. Frisbee, stir fry, and day drinking were the highlights of the trip.

I was perfectly fine until the nerve was hit...the axon crushed during normal conversation. I am short, this word rings in my ears every time I see a "beautiful" girl or someone who looks attractive to the standard that our modern media has put us, I know that it's the first thing that most people see and, quite frequently, too much to overcome. On top of the TV there was a card with a muscular man standing on the side of a mountain with the writing "for your birthday...I thought you'd want a tall one on the rocks" or something very similar. In conversation they talked several times about one guy who is "really cute" but "too short" or nice but...too short. Do they berate people like that while another guy exhibiting the same physical characteristics is in there intentionally?

I always avoid it when I'm in a mixed group. The guys I'm around are sensitive to a single opposite sex in the room. We don't talk about boobs or dsl's when a new girl is present.
Long story short, after about 3 hours...I realized Alison was completely right on what a huge mistake it was to go there.

On the opposite end, it doesn't make me feel good at all to talk about their attractiveness in a bad light. The blonde was really pudgy and had a pigface, the runner was also a chunk who had no tits...but less gross than the blonde. Then, the brunette was a real treat...sounded like my cell bio prof and had an unfortunate nose.
Conversation? Not at all. When I type that shit I get a feeling of self loathing. I don't mean to sound like I'm better than them for not doing that shit...but I just don't undestand how someone could lead a fulfilling life while putting themselves up to these standards constantly.

Then, there's K...caught up in it. On the tip of my tongue I had a lot I wanted to say to her, because I know she's not happy with her current situation. She feels like it can be solved with a good looking guy...but I'm pretty sure that's what a lot of loveless Jackson parents believe when they're running through their materialist lives. I don't have the answers for a lot of things. My way of doing things has gotten me through a lot of heatbreak and some of the most fucked up shit that can happen to a human.

There was a moment on Friday that I felt like opening up and having myself cut loose. I love making myself an ass on the dance floor...it's just fun. I started dancing with K for a bit, grabbed her, then just tensed up. It felt so completely wrong because I'd never be able to fit all the points for a good dancer. If I got those good dancer points I'd probably fall into the category of "hitting on her" or "being a creep."
That criticism is something that I don't want. Janee blasted me when I got home, but I care about what she says...I couldn't give a shit about what some chick in a dress says about my breath, actions, or demeanor in conversation.

The whole weekend I was tripping on words and feeling like a knot was in my head.

The odd thing is though, I really, genuinely care about that girl (K). When someone opens up to me, even once a while ago, about something personal...I can relate. I have a lot going through my mind at all times.

Even though he didn't understand it, I told Falcon on the way home that I felt like I got the Euthyphro eye back. Straight thinker. I understand a bit about self-actualization and piety through it's opposite. It feels good.

It will be frozen in my mind though, when I was sitting at the computer. She was just laying on the bed, hair carelessly messed up across her face. Her glasses set square on her prominent nose. The odd black line separated her two front teeth. I remember just looking briefly about the way that the skin below her chin looks when she lifts up her head. Her crooked feet, deep brown eyes, and the moles dotting her complexion gives her this unmistakably remarkable appearence. It's incredible. She's a really quirky looking girl.

If you couple that with what's underneath it though it's phenomenal. Intelligent, driven, and sassy (or...bitchy), would be three perfect words to describe her. She's a multiflora rose. I would have loved to just curl up next to her and peel back a stigma or two. Make her feel loved.

I wouldn't dwell on this so much if it didn't fit so well into everything I've been wondering about.

Would she be so discontent if she pursued the path like Maria or Eden?

When we were on the dance floor she said "find a cute girl and dance with her!" I approached and started...doing what I consider dancing but people around me think is a sideshow...and she said "no, a cute girl." When I stepped away...all I could think was "there's nothing that this place could really offer me...I've tried. I've had it (making out with 6 girls in 1 dance party). I don't like it. I think that the sustaining connection that a man gets when he shares his weakness with a woman who wants his strengths is so much more fulfulling."

If there were three words to describe me they would be: rugged, intense, and curious. Coming home was a beautiful contrast. The town of Oxford resembles a whitewashed marble countertop with fancy cookery on it. My home is like my countertop: functional, messy, me. Coming home and drinking with my sisters and Josh was perfect. I got to be outside in open air, light a fire, talk about planting, and enjoy the moment where I could be completely myself and embrace what people thought of me. No condescending glances from girls with laptops or men with buttondown shirts. The conversation went from evolution to flipflops and riding alpacas.

This is what the blonde primate fit in with perfectly. I'd love to learn how to contra dance, salsa, or even rage to lady gaga. I vividly remember one of my first nights in college at her house where we all were just waving our arms and jumping in what I called a free-association dance. It was about feeling. If you got close to someone your movements wouldn't have to be dictated by what other people were doing. If you were far away you could be as subtle or maniacal as you wanted. You could edge up to a soft spoken cute hippie or jump and kick around with your friend. No one gave a shit about propriety.

That biting wittiness that K has is really sexy. In no way am I attracted to her though. She'd probably either use the gesture as a self-esteem booster or gossip food. She's consticting. I felt something this morning though; if I were that iconic figure on top of the rocks things would be different. If in some strange alternate dimension I were charming (in the traditional sense), clean, a foot taller, less inclined toward function and more toward form, richer, and enjoyed the wrappered life...
I would have liked to cuddle up with her. As is, she's a solid friend and an interesting person. There's no way in hell that I'd try for it to be any different. There would be no point, both of us would hate each other. I just want her to be happy.

Seeing this in comparison to what I am and who I pursue has given me a lot of clarity. I'll still put on that fake face and plow through whatever tuttee girl I really want to get with...but when it comes down to it, I want to be with someone who is a little...wild, in a wild way.

I have a lot to look forward to this week. Possibly getting back in the hospital. Selling my silver and getting a bit of coin for a trip, or a quarter of school. Meeting with the professor to talk about senesence. Talking to Mathias an Jillian. Losing the constriction of mandated activities...playing outside. It's going to be a great week. Maybe I'll get to see that bibliotecaria again. If there's any girl I'm excited to keep taking out spring it would be her. I'm also pumped to go out to a movie with Star and Mengxuan.

Lab job kicking back up next quarter. It's going to be rough/rewarding.

Sprung

I expected this: the collapse of the picturesque archetype. I always imagined myself as the strong, impermeable, conquistador/researcher/monk. If you have seen the fountain you'd know what I'm talking about. This quarter was a disaster. I got wrapped up in thoughts about death, knowledge, and the concept of taoism vs. western religiosity.

I just got out of my Ochem exam. I couldn't sleep last night. The blonde called at about 2:30 a.m. to see what I was up to. I was asleep for the whole conversation.

Everyone said that organic chemistry is challenging, and I always took the "wow, you're doing a lot" for granted. This quarter really was...a lot. Toward the 2nd half I realized that I would be manacled tightly to this schedule when the world around would pass. This week, finals week, I realized that I was too late to recover.

My GPA has been a concern for me always. It's going down after this quarter. I expect it will sink to a 3.5, at the worst...it's still lower than I want.

Instead of frantically rethink my schedule to see if I can take something to compensate I realize: it's time to cut back. 2 majors and 2 minors is enough...too much. It was easy when I had that Euthyphro clarity: I thought something was the way it is because of some direct purpose and I thought that I could break through to it.

Instead of blitzing medical school I realize now what I have to do: what I want to do. Everyone in the Spanish major seems to gravitate toward teaching English in Spain. This is something that I'm going to do for a year. No master's before this. No unnecessary work at the expense of my happiness.

They used to be the same. Last spring I took 20 hours of heavily weighted science classes...and performed very well. All I could think about this quarter was that pre-med advisor saying "you have a long way to go. No rests. No 2nd thoughts."

I realize that a psychosocial moratorium is necessary. I realize I'm rambling.

My associate in Dr. Chen's lab is very helpful when it comes to this stuff. At the beginning of this quarter I looked at him with an air of slight condescension. This also is going to stop.

1 year off travelling the world with a working language job. Maybe I'll throw in some research in another country (I'm thinking public health in Ecuador...maybe I'll be a biolab tech for something involving parasitology...which always interested me).


Although...if I passed Ochem I'm likely to continue with another quarter of Ochem, phys, biocalc, embryology, and evolution.

My mind is dead right now.

drive

This last week has been exasperating. Cops have been to my house twice in a few days, I'm getting destroyed studying for finals, my headaches are getting worse, and I've been dragging myself down emotionally over a bunch of things.

This is going to be over very soon. Time seems to drag when you have a book in front of you with a bunch of figures that seem meaningless. Couple this with the fact that it's your job to explain things to students that are taking the class...and you can't remember some things. It's flat out depressing.

Although I see the destruction that "carpe diem" can bring if it is totally unchecked...I am aslo infuriated by the extraneous waste of time that some studying can be. Why would I want to study 4 years in medical school if I'm going to just forget it when I specialize? This is really frustrating to me. If I were reading philosophy I'd get this rush of euphoria whenever I think in a different way. With literature, a good story can trip my emotions...which is also really exciting. Science gives me a feeling of prolonged frustration...that subsides into a feeling of power when I understand a little more about the way that things operate. I have always been a kinesthetic learner. Labs seem to teach me way more than staring at the krebs cycle.

I'm almost done with this stuff though.

Bernardo needcs to be remembered. My roommates woke me up 4:30 a.m. Friday morning because this Mexican wouldn't leave our house and couldn't speak a word of English. After talking to the guy for about a half hour I discerned that he was here from Mexico on some sort of temporary work permit, he had a wife, he wouldn't tell me where he worked (he tried to tell me that he was a cop about 4 times but I kept asking for I.D.), he kept saying weird sexual things in Mexican lexicon, the reason he was at our house was because he was looking for a female friend...he wouldn't say who it was or how he knew her...and he was very drunk. At one point in the conversation he distinctly went on about stabbing...but some of the referent pronouns were indescernable. After a half hour of telling him that he had to go...I left.

When I was out of sight and he was out of the house I told my friends to call the cops. I had to go to the station and report all this. The cops told me they'd picked him up before for groping and stalking. In the mix there might have been allegations of attempted or successful rape...but I can't say for sure...I was really tired (like any normal person would be at 5 a.m.).

The cops came to my house last night when one of the new guys had too much to drink.

I wrote the number 40 on my hand. 40 minutes tomorrow, I'm going to dedicate to either playing an instrument, writing poetry, or doing something that I used to love...but let fall by the wayside for more "practical" and less passionate things. I spend at least that much time walking places. if I start riding my bike, watching less TV downstairs, sleeping in less, facebooking less, working faster, or focusing more then I would be able to reinvigorate my dormant passions.

I realize that I have become an intense person. My conversations are very serious and intense. Bitterness creeps down my spine. It seeps into my fingers and comes out in repetitive compositions about my life. Instead of the cathartic funnel-breaking release...it is a constriction that further drains the flow of creative thought.

I should spend no more time staring at my DARS thinking about my future and how I can maximize my effectiveness. I want a cheap motherboard for my computer, a cheap recording software, a cheap microphone, and a half hour a day to record songs with some friends I let drift.

I made a resolution this year to be resolute in pursuing passion. I have lifted more, attained a transient physical relationship with someone that I have liked for years, and got the position in the fraternity that I wanted. This has been good. However, it's time to branch out and regrow my old ties. I love the guys in the basement...but scrolling through my phone, I realize that all my hippie friends have graduated or stopped talking to me. My life has less contrast and less balance. Instead of loathing my decision to let that slide, I'm going to do something about it.
Also, my classwork has sucked lately. It's like I've been in a winter funk. This is not what I envisioned when I said that I'm going to let loose the spring.

Bobby knows of a scholarship I might be able to grab for puerto rico this upcoming winter break. This would be the perfect scheduled catharsis at the end of the gauntlet to a professional and beautiful life. I'm going to ask him about it...but I'm not going to let myself aggregate the enjoyment in life to small vacations. The tanline on my wrist isn't going to appear...the watch is going to come off in the light of the sun with more frequency. This is it.

Now back to studying. I feel better. I'm going to read this to myself once in a while and ask if I've lived up to it.

Weather

Alice in Wonderland was amazing. I felt like I lost myself in the baroque childish nature of the film.

Last night I slept very well after a curious experiment involving rice crispy treats and a great deal of salt and vinegar chips. My mouth burns today.

I understand that bipolar disorder runs in my family. Sometimes I get rash emotions that come quickly and influence my decisions in bad ways. I think that logic can control it most of the time...but then again I'm back to the old question: Can we reason away emotion?

I was really frustrated today at my cell biology professor. She's a "squirly old woman" as my friend says...and her class is virtually unbearable. Cells are fascinating...but a saggy, monotone, nasal, ancient, short, unenthused, sadistic, unpleasant, swine of a woman completely destroys the subject. I worked my ass off on a project recently...understanding and experimenting on the cannabinoid receptors in peripheral nocioceptive neurons...and all her times to check the paper were full. I looked at my friend's paper after she "checked it" and there was ink all over it. I don't know what she expects from us...but some people signed up for like 2 or 3 times...which left me nothing because I never know my schedule until the week it happens (the uncertainty of tutoring has become all too annoying lately).

Thinking about it...I have very little respect for many aspects of Ohio University. I used to love it here freshman year...but as I grow older I see more and more cracks in the sidewalk here. The judiciary system, administrative decisions, and quality of education is not what it should be in the biology department. It's like they try to fail you. Some lab-rat profs shouldn't be teachers. There are the articulate and interesting types (Dr. Sue, Dr. Zook, and Dr. Berstein were very entertaining), but the pleasant experiences given me by these teachers are tapered by the fact that lecture is a deadzone for learning. My friend James doesn't even attend his Bios 170 class because the lab-rat prof is so awful at teaching that it's more beneficial to just read the book.

Occasionally you have a teacher brave enough to teach in a non-native language. This is spectacular; I know how it is to try and communicate with someone in a different language. I went to Spain for about 2 months. Therefore, the difficulty facing foreign professors I can understand...but there's no excuse for a large chunk of the inept teachers here at OU.

English department: phenomenal. Spanish: acceptable. Chem labs: Straight out of the 50's...where is the money going? Bio: Apart from the research...leaves plenty to be desired.

When will universities really focus on teaching? I think that it should be mandatory that a professor have research experience...as well as a fraction of education background...or at least basic human social skills.

Right now I have an interesting prof for chemistry, a fun Spanish teacher, and a stern but dynamic math teacher. I leave cell bio in a bad mood though. 3 more days of it. Woo!

It's so beautiful outside. I'm going to have a good day outside from that bad cell bio thing. I know my GPA is going to go down quick this quarter. I'm at a 3.6 this quarter...I'm probably getting a 3.0...which will bring it down to a 3.46 according to how many credit hours I'm taking. Next quarter is the same courseload...but I have the same Ochem and biocalc professors...and I have a better physics prof.

I should go do some physics before my 4 pm tutoring session.

Hoops

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCci4mEOhvU

The relative complexity of simple interactions astounds me. Last night we threw a party at my house; it was a lot of fun. I met up with my friend Bobb IV and had some Estrellas. I threw up in my sink. Overall though, it was a great night.

Anyways, I'm thinking about how tough it is to muster up the strength to jump through these hoops every day. Tomorrow I have a cell biology paper due, Ochem reading to finish, a physics quiz to complete, Spanish papers to write, and appointments to make. The weather is nice outside.

I feel my body...every part of it. I have arms and legs that want to be outside running, playing soccer. This isn't possible though...because I have so much shit to do. I was sitting on the porch this morning contemplating the insanity of last night when I realized that I don't want to continue with this quarter. It seems like nothing good has come out of school this last 9 weeks. 2 more...thats all I can tell myself.

Last night we talked about travel, life, and I rambled some stupid philosophy all over the conversation. I remember meeting that French girl in Spain...and how much more interesting and dynamic she is relative to the majority of the American girls that I meet. I understand that this is a generalization of Americans...but generalizations exist to save us time and energy...some are very detrimental (racism) but a lot of them have their place in maintaining our biological fitness (such as a common fear of all snakes even though only a fraction of them are lethal). If I tried to date absolutely every girl with rich suburban parents and a sense for fashion I would probably go insane.

Ugg boots and north face jackets are a common way to differentiate people of this caliber on a superficial level.

I was getting pizza this week when I sat down next to 2 girls talking about dancing. The conversation moved to ass shaking and they talked about that for the 15 minutes it took me to finish eating. The conversation made me think a lot but simultaneously was very interesting because the girls were very attractivel; they were "out of my league."

Here's where I get off the bandwagon though. Because I am such a critic...I deconstruct myself to the point where it's almost inevitably hopeless...Napoleon complex.

Napoleon was short in stature, but described his outlook on life with the phrase "Power is my mistress." I will never be tall, attractive, or in most ways physically desirable to the majority of the female human population (probably the most incredible and confusing living creatures in the universe). I think this every day when I wake up...but it doesn't keep me awake when I lay down to sleep. Napoleon compensated for his physical shortcomings by being a badass...

I'm not saying that this is what I am aspiring to, but I am saying that the heightened intelligence of this species has allowed for people who are genetically inferior, like me, to reproduce and be "successful" in life by using their intelligence effectively.

This is where philosophy and biology come in. With biology I hope to raise myself to the level of being a desirable companion for an interesting woman. This will be attained when I have a "successful" career as some sort of physician. Herein lies a paradox however...I would never want the kind of woman that wants someone for money.

I have this debate in my mind often. In the shower, walking to class, or while cooking breakfast I turn over the idea of companionship and romance. This is part of the reason why I want to leave the country so badly. I dislike the fact that men and women salivate over posessions, power, and physical things. In other countries, people seem to place more value on experiences. I find this more valuable because experiences and memories may not be tangible...but, as a large chunk of the philosopher community might argue, we only know and understand the world through memories. Every passing second is only understood and interpreted once we have it stored in our memory (in the hippocampus...I can't wait to understand this when I take neuro next year) and interpret it with our logical frontal lobe.

My sisters are the kind of girls that seem to get it. Janee never looks at a catalog of purses or boots. She goes for the luxury of practicality. Corina keeps a level head as well...although she's less into the whole farm thing, and more about practical "modernish" things.

I just get confused by some women. Shopping blows my mind. Someone poured their time into getting those little green pieces of paper...and you're going to hand them to someone in order to get a shiny thing that hangs from your ear...or an odd shirt that someone tells you is cool to wear.

As a scientist I have gained a substantial amount of knowledge about human interaction. It's almost to the point where I can predict behavior. Wearing ratty clothes causes the majority of people at OU to not want to talk to you. Wearing no shoes would get you some interesting looks as well. At a party, you can say a certain set of things to people and shift your discourse of conversation in accordance with what their feelings and reactions are. Manipulating your language and appearence well will get you what you want. Getting what you want is power. Language is used to attain this.

Language. James Joyce. Free association. Brownian motion.

All of those pictures in that order has a great deal of meaning to me. They are all isolated things...but have some sort of neural connection that causes me to associate the memory of one with the rest of them.

Again...I digress too much.

I am naturally drawn to "different" women because I am very "different." The term "different" in this context means that they're not the prototype that the media (specifically MTV and VH1) try to stamp on you. Alison, Amanda, Ambre, Mengxuan, Sarah, and every other girl that I have had a prolonged relationship or vague romantic interest in has had some distinguishing characteristic that sets them completely different from the standard that is portrayed in the cookie-cutter conformist culture that a lot of women aspire to.

I'm going to challenge myself...I do this a lot to keep my thoughts in perspective. Are they really different? Alison is an environmentalist, vegetarian, non-drinking, athletic, cultured, and positive person. She has a host of philosophical inconsistencies that annoyed me...like her enjoyment of the show "made" on MTV...and how we would always drive to a coffee shop to talk about why the environment is being destroyed by the auto industry. I can't be a critic of her though.

Now that I'm on the subject of it...everything just rushed into my head at once.
There are 3 or 4 things that set me against the grain. 1. Alison put me in college, showed me kindness, and we pushed each other to be more enlightened and good. 2. My childhood. I'm not getting into it. 3. The direction of a man that I will only refer to as "the professor." His guidance and challenges have caused me to be an articulate and accomplished (according to the comments of the professors in my English classes) critic of literature and philosophy. He's the only person I know that can floor anyone in an argument. His rhetoric is incredible, his knowledge is immense, and his compassion is limitless. He is a pastor, nurse, and professor of history and philosophy. He is the sole reason that I haven't given up all hope of christianity making any sense in my life.

These things caused me to pull my head out of the sand (sorry for the trite analogy...I know ostriches don't actually put their head in the sand when threatened...they kick whatever is threatening them and run away. This old wives tale of the ostrich came from a Roman writer named Pliny a couple thousand years ago). Some days I hate it. I wish that I could actually attain lasting happiness by running the gauntlet of consumption and desire. This template doesn't suit me though. I like books and discussion. My excessive obsession with Lady Gaga is a strange desire to be normal...which usually results in a dance that everyone around me thinks is hilarious.

Again. I digress. I was challenging myself and I reiterated something that I already knew. These girls are different. They have to be to have any sort of reciprocation with me. I am sexually attracted to intelligence, talent, boobs, and nice teeth. I love a good smile.

A random thought in my head has to come out. How can I be sitting here pushing these buttons and not fighting someone, eating something, or having sex? It's such a weird phenomenon. Thunder and I talked about it for a bit...we would not have any complex society if we didn't practice this (moral?) self denial. This computer would never have been invented by a bonobo. Everything about this species seems to be focused toward excess. The phenomenon of "free time" has given us a lot.

back to what I was saying about women. I want to leave the country to get that fresh perspective from someone that I can have the luxury of experience mattering more than tangible superficial things.

I think this depends on the culture though. The Chinese girl that I dated for 5 or 6 months was very geared toward monitary success...to the point where I couldn't see past it; consequently, I couldn't see her. The French girl was a nihilist...but she made it so refreshing. She saw my tattoo and looked at me with beautiful brown eyes and said "You will not go to the paradise. This is todo." Instead of being depressing as fuck...I was really happy to be walking the banks of the rio Tajo with her. I'm going to have to work at it, but I really want to see her again soon. It's a really high hoop to jump through...but I've got a running start: I have a fifteen lb. bag of silver stashed in my room. It's 99.9% pure...so it's worth a plane ticket to Europe. Maybe I'll go for the harvest next year? Maybe I'm dreaming. That silver would pay for a quarter of college. Maybe I'll get a good chunk of loan money.

I'm going to experience Alice in Wonderland with Amanda, the blonde primate...later today. I feel better about "us" now that labels are actually off. I get the feeling we'll gradually drift apart...but that's not as bad as chopping a relationship up with a meat cleaver.


Time is passing...so am I. Organic chemistry isn't going to study itself.

Break

I am a scientist. I analyze things to the point where no one else wants to look at them anymore, and mos people get sick of my input on tedious things.

My field of study, at least for the first 19 years of my life, has been philosophy. My lifelong goal has been to understand people.

That's a very brief explanation of myself. I'm sure you'll read more of it dispersed in this website.

The most recent thing that happened, this morning actually, was a text message to this little blonde primate that I enjoyed spending time with. Not much emotion can be conveyed in a text. The smiley faces don't cut it 90% of the time. Especially when you're texting someone to say that you shouldn't be anything more than friends.

Emotions are also strange things that I keep tabs on. When I was around her I felt absolutely incredible. I loved just laying there and taking it in. On my current course society is going to refer to me as a "doctor" when I'm done with the social phenomena "school" and "internships." My current fields of interest are neurology or genetics. However, all the societal pressure and conformist machinery that is hammering around me when I go about daily life would grow dull...and I would just think of how magnificent it was to breathe, be alive.

Now I'm sitting in a chair. Curious about why I (chemical randomness) do what I do. This blonde female primate was fun, irrational, attractive, and a perfect contrast to my rigid and pathetic studies. Human tendencies, and organisms in general, have always gravitated toward consistency and security. Time is the perfect device with which we love to cut up our lives. I have it all mapped out. 4 years undergraduate (the fourth will be a cinch because I'll be done in 3), 4 years medical, 4-5 years residency, kids, retirement, and death around 94...today I am meeting my friend for drinks at 7...monday I will be up at exactly 6:45 to make some (weak) coffee and instant oatmeal...I'll listent to the news, shower, maybe . Then the treadmill kicks in: 8-9 physics 9-10 organic chemistry, 10-12 studying for cell biology, 12-1 cell biology, 1-2 lunch and biological calculus study, 3-4 lifting weights and running, 4-5 study and figure out what to do for dinner...then after that I jump off the treadmill and go out to dinner most likely with a friend...then meetings and phone calls and books...

The bakery girl threw a wrench in that occasionally. In an awesome way. I'd miss a class, or skip a meeting. It was a little beautiful chaos in my day.

Then it just became chaos. Thoughts, emotions, and apprehensions affected study. Study is a means of gaining power and increasing my effectiveness with my "goals" in life. It boiled down to a little thing in life called "choice" and "sacrifice." The second one is frightening. Sacrifice...giving up something for something greater.

Sacrifice. That word reminds me of a botched interview with a neuro professor. "Would you be comfortable injecting baby mice with barbituates...sacrificing them for the good of science?"
I hesitated.
"Then this job is not for you!"
Fuck. I missed a great opportunity.

Here's where I sit: Humans develop a great connection with these things called "families." Basically families are this great thing where a group of people who share a lot of commonalities in their DNA (or want to share via sexual repro) stay together and interact frequently. These interactions affect their behavior. People prefer to help a fellow primate in their "family" over almost any other naked ape.

My family is the same. I have a loving mom, a stern and caring father, and 2 amazingly fun sisters. However, incapacities have wrecked parts of it. Autism, alcohol abuse, traumatic childhood abuse, complex neurological conditions, and family hardship have all negatively affected my extended family to the point where I fell obligated to help them.

This brings me to another thing that has been a complex and extended study of mine: POWER. $$$$$$ $$ $$$$ $ $$ $$$
Those little signs represent a thing called "money," which is a complex exchange system that represents the ability to make other primates do what you want. You can take away their family, force sexual intercourse, murder, or take things that other naked apes have created if you have enough of it...and no one can stop you. The people that have it enstate complex systems to keep it (such as the food and oil industries...don't get me started...I might not stop) in their posession. Despite the effects of carelessly discarded waste on the health of the rest of the naked apes on planet earth (not to mention all of our cousins: the rest of the mammals, arthropods, reptiles, birds, and creatures of the world) the people with the $$$ will do anything to keep it: http://www.muenda.com/blog/e-waste-pollution-the-trail-to-africa. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence.

Planned osolescence...there's a concept. We'll make it so it breaks so you have to keep buying them...or it will just be useless because of the softward in 2 years...wait! Where do we put it? Africa, they got space. Wait...not enough space. How do we make it smaller? Burn it. Then it gets in the atmosphere and spreads to other villages. Oh...cadmium, lead, and mercury in computer parts are versatile neurotoxins that are bad for people? Well I guess that might make people not want to buy a new ipod...
We primates are "caring" things. "Caring" means, in most cases, that people will be willing to "sacrifice" something in order to help another person. The people with the power understand that if people saw that this was goind on, the "caring" factor would drive them out of business.

Most information is, or was, attained through the mainstream media. Mainstream media is funded by corporations that perform exploitive pollution practices like this all the fucking time. Coca-cola, microsoft, and the oil industry have no corporate accountability. Europe got pissed abouty most of the shit coke was pulling...so they reformed it. America however, has this beautifully constructed power flux system that prevents that. Here's how it goes:
The naked apes in this country are proud of the system we have.
This pride leads to the aggravated intolerance of questioning.
This intolerance allows powerful people to manipulate minds unchallenged.
This manipulation takes place through the media.
The media runs on cash.
The cash runs on the decisions of each of us naked apes in elections...as well as what the powerful $$$ loaded primates do.
The powerful wealthy aflluent primates influence our government with a one-two punch...they own the different media, the media controls the minds of the people, the people control the consumption of products and the election of people to "regulate" the wealthy...how the hell does this make sense?
It stems from pride and intolerance.

Coupling the concepts of "family" and "caring" I choose to devote my time and energy to subverting what small piece of intricate and destructive puzzle. If I can gain wealth and resources to do research I can possibly reverse what's happening to my family from the medical perspective...as well as pour my monitary power into projects to help the proud and intolerant naked apes see why they shouldn't buy plastic water bottles...or get caught in consumerist monoculture in the first place.

This is where the blonde woman has to exit. She is incredible...but I have a straight and long road in front of me. I want this. I need someone who will bend with me and will make me better...

Time peels away when we're together. It grabs me by the wrist and jerks me along when we part. I need to get better control over everything that's going on...
It sucks so bad that I can't trust this primate with all my "emotions."
Emotions...they're an unfortunate blessing. They have the capacity to inhibit our most powerful weapon (from a biological perspective): thought.

Some might argue that we live only for them. It has as much power over us as the affluent lawmakers that manipulate us to view people who are caring as "hippies" or "environmentalist vegetarian freaks." If you suppress them...you're missing out on everything in life. If you give in to them...you have no control. The balance is one of the most difficult things in the life of man.

I always site this as a "frankenstein complex" because the novel provides a perfect example of the phenomenon. Victor wants to save life...to create it. This is his passion...it consumes him. He has a responsibility to his family and himself that he totally neglects. If he pursued science with a reasonable interest...he would have been a very successful and happy man. Instead...his passion wrecked (strangled) everything that he loved. The diction that Shelley uses describing his fervant passion is stunning.

TIME! I have let too much of it pass while I've been journaling my experience. I need to get to chemistry and physics. I still have that emotional knot in the pit of my stomach. I wonder how her emotions are at this moment. We had a very different approach to each other. I sensed that her emotions were nowhere near as strongly triggered as mine were. An encounter with me appeared as a normal event. Nothing to bend for. This is good. This is normal.

My thoughts drift again. I can't wait to get back on the mats again and learn some more fighting techniques. Winter quarter has been characterized by this chronic eye infection that prevents me from wearing contacts...and has me taking 8 painkillers a day to stave my nocioceptors.

Entonces...tengo que salir.